Real Madrid lifted their 11th European Cup on Saturday to cement their place as the most successful club in the prestigious competition.

Here, Sportsmail's Rob Draper analyses this season's Champions League, with the final between Real and Atletico Madrid coming under particular focus.

Florentino Perez is not the world’s greatest sporting director…

Yes, his team won the Champions League and you can imagine president Perez lauding himself on the achievement of winning the ‘Undecima’, a record 11th European Cup.

Yet back in the autumn he was chastising his former manager Rafa Benitez for preferring the likes of Mateo Kovacic in midfield over James. ‘Do you know how many shirts James sells?’ Perez told Benitez. ‘Kovavic doesn’t sell us a single shirt.’ Which is probably true. But it’s funny how when Real Madrid employ a proper holding midfielder – and it was Casemiro who did the job excellently in the final – they somehow look better than the team Perez would pick.

‘Every Champions League match it was “La Decima, La Decima,”’ said Gareth Bale last month reflecting on the 2014 Champions League win. ‘Now it’s “La Undecima, La Undecima.” I thought as soon as ‘La Decima’ was done, they’d be happy. But no. It’s just in the club’s nature, they want to win the European Cup every year. It’s instilled in you and you go for it every year.’

Perez may be the world’s worst owner in terms of the way he pressurises coaches and sucks them of joy and energy like a Dementor. And yet, at least he does understand the core of the club, the essence which drives its history. For all his daft talk of shirt sales, he knows that it is winning the Champions League which defines the club. There are a few Premier League club owners, contentedly measuring the size of their turnover and counting the money of their new TV deal, who could watch and learn.

Former Tottenham star Gareth Bale kisses the Champions League trophy after guiding his side to victory

Possession is no longer nine tenths of the law

They proved their own thesis by losing the final. Ironically, for the team which demonstrated that it is possible to win games at the top level without having the ball, Atletico Madrid enjoyed 52 per cent of the possession in Saturday’s final. Playing on the counter is nothing new but it has certainly been true that ever since Pep Guardiola changed the balance of the game by giving Total Football a reboot in 2008, much of the football world has genuflected before the alter of possession football.

Inter under Jose Mourinho in 2010 and Chelsea under Roberto Di Matteo in 2012 had already demonstrated its flaws by knocking out Barcelona. But in taking out both of Guardiola’s pet projects, his former team Barcelona and his current side Bayern, Diego Simeone gave fresh hope to all coaches everywhere faced with seemingly impossible odds.

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Don’t read the memo

‘I like Atletico Madrid,’ said Crystal Palace owner Steve Parish. ‘They haven’t read the memo that says they have to finish behind Real Madrid and Barcelona every year.’ And, OK, so they did actually finish behind Real Madrid and Barcelona this season. And they lost the final to Real Madrid. But we all know what he was driving at. Real Madrid turnover £439million a year; Barcelona generate £427million. And Atletico? £142million. Which sounds a lot but it’s only a little more than Everton and Newcastle.

You have to temper this romanticism with an acceptance that Atletico owners have fully exploited third-party ownership arrangements, only banned last year by UEFA, which allows them to pick up South American players on the cheap and effectively move expenditure off their balance sheet. But even so, they are pitted against the most-powerful football clubs in the world, so it’s hard not to admire their unwillingness to accept their place.

Diego Simeone managed to guide his side to the final despite working with a smaller budget than his rivals

The Premier League back Brexit

Sort of. Or rather their instincts appear to be decidedly un-European. Splendid isolation appears to be much more comfortable as they count the pennies of their latest £8billion TV deal. Owners in England give the impression that winning the Premier League represents the be all and end all.

Coaches don’t seem to have to have caught up with Guardiola’s and Jurgen Klopp’s re-writing of the rules on the intensity at which the game has to be played – though with both of them starting the Premier League for the first time next season, this will surely change.

In the Europa League, many Premier League clubs seem to value finishing 14th above a trophy. There is no doubt that since their period of domination, from 2005-2008, English clubs have taken their eye off the ball in Europe. The most-obvious explanation is that they are too busy being smug at their record turnovers to think too hard about the fact that the actual quality of the football is falling.

The final was excellent

Many watching on TV seemed to think the game sagged in parts and that it wasn’t a great spectacle. However, watching in the San Siro, the intensity, tactical acumen, the level of technique demonstrated under pressure and the skill produced at speed seemed to be at a level above anything I had witnessed in the Premier League this season. Not many on Twitter agreed. Yet I can recall watching Chelsea take on Liverpool at Stamford Bridge in 2005 in a Champions League semi-final, when the Premier League was hitting it speak period and being astonished at the speed at which both teams could execute their technical skills whilst not dropping off in intensity.

At Stamford Bridge the press box is almost at pitch level so game that good and played at that speed has a visceral impact. Yet that was then. The Premier League doesn’t hit those heights anymore.

The Ugly Sisters still have a role

It was the first sprint of the game. Sergio Ramos and Pepe set off together. It seemed they were in a race. The game was only a few minutes old but they were determined to demonstrate their sharpness and impose themselves on the game. The reason for such alacrity? Why, to demand Mark Clattenburg issued a yellow card to an Atletico player. Never more committed than when surrounding the referee, they scratched, clawed and kicked their way through the game. They kept up a non-stop dialogue with Clattenburg. Pepe’s diving had even the referee sticking his tongue out at him in derision.

Yet their personalities dominate their team and Ramos scored and put his penalty away. They remain the team’s blue collar leaders, the embodiment of the desire to get across the line by any means necessary.

Real Madrid defender Sergio Ramos (pictured) and his partner in crime Pepe stole the show in Milan

Zinedine Zidane is better than Arsene Wenger (apparently)

It should be the ultimate test of a coach. And at times it does deliver. The great modern coaches are duly honoured in the annals of the Champions League. Carlo Ancelotti and Bob Paisley have three victories while Arrigo Sacchi, Pep Guardiola, Sir Alex Ferguson, Jose Mourinho, Helenio Herrera, Ottmar Hitzfeld, Jupp Heynckes, and Brian Clough all have two. That’s quite a list. But Arsene Wenger has none; nor does Simeone, yet.

Zinedine Zidane has won the Champions League though; as have Roberto Di Matteo and Tony Barton. None could claim to be in Wenger’s class, nor Simeone’s. Yet there it is, an uncomfortable anomaly sitting in the record books.

It remains the world’s toughest tournament to defend

Ever since the modern incarnation of the tournament began in 1992, we have convinced ourselves that this is the year of the new super team. Last year’s winner often seem so good, you feel sure that they can do it again. Back in February it seemed implausible that Barcelona were not the best team in Europe. At long last a team would defend the Champions League, the first since AC Milan in 1989 and 1990.

Perhaps the old era of Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Ajax and Liverpool dominating the trophy over a number of years might even return. And yet, that just seems to be a relic of the past, something that the intensity of the new format and the number of good teams it allows to qualify does not permit. That a team as good as Barcelona cannot defend the trophy would appear to be the ultimate proof of that.

Ronaldo is still the man (for now)

He was possibly the 18th best player on the pitch on Saturday. And yet when it came down to it, he still was the man who delivered the trophy with the fifth and decisive penalty. Of course, this is manufactured. He places himself in the glory position and no-one would dare suggest anything different. (It would make more sense to take the first penalty, but it is statistically proven that doing so decreases the opportunity a player has to rip off his shirt and expose his ripped torso to the world). The fact that he craves that responsibility demonstrates that he will be around for some time more. There were signs in the first half that Perez’s much-vaunted deam of Bale superseding Ronaldo as the star of the team might be edging a little closer.

Ultimately though, Ronaldo ensured he would ultimately take centre stage. Maybe his time is coming to an end; maybe Bale will be more important next season. But for now, his 35 goals and 11 assists (to Bale’s 19 and 10) show that he remains the undisputed leader of Real Madrid for the moment.

Cristiano Ronaldo poses with the Champions League trophy after winning the competition for a third time